


and i know i've kissed you before, but i didn't do it right

by spanish_sahara



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Copious Amounts of Mental Health Issues, M/M, Post-Persona 5: The Royal, break-up fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spanish_sahara/pseuds/spanish_sahara
Summary: On the day of the two-month anniversary since Kurusu Akira shit all over his heart, Goro wakes up, and he is fine. Even if his mouth still tastes like the cheap beer he washed down his throat last night, and there’s definitely a line of drool on his cheek, he opens his eyes, and he doesn’t feel like he hates the world as much as he did yesterday morning. Goro is fine, and not thinking at all about how much it hurts to be in love with Kurusu Akira, until he checks his phone.(2:04 AM)Akira:heyAkira:wydAkira breaks up with Goro. Goro deals.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Kitagawa Yusuke, Akechi Goro & Takamaki Ann, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 16
Kudos: 164





	and i know i've kissed you before, but i didn't do it right

**Author's Note:**

> [cw: depression, alcoholism/heavy descriptions of drinking, suicide mention, heavy description of suicide (in the past tense)]
> 
> when u get an epic love story but u also have 2 characters who are not emotionally adjusted enough to function in a long-term stable relationship..............u get a 15k fic, i guess. 
> 
> this is post-p5r, true ending, set one year after the epilogue. please heed the warnings, and enjoy.

* * *

I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms.  
_James Baldwin_ , _Giovanni’s Room_

* * *  
  
  


**NOVEMBER 1, 2018**

Two hours after Akira breaks up with him, Goro gets absolutely trashed.

Crossroads has barely opened and is unfortunately free of patrons who Goro can verbally eviscerate. He throws himself into the closest seat at the counter and gestures Lala for a drink. She eyes him up, no doubt skeptical of the absence of Akira next to him, but still places a bottle of Sapporo in front of him. He inhales it in a matter of moments, throat working on autopilot, and gestures for another.

“You good, kid?” Lala asks, with the resigned air of a bar owner who already knows the answer.

“Never better,” Goro says, expression not even twitching when addressed as _kid_. “Actually, would you mind giving me something a little stronger than this? You can put everything on my tab at the end. I just have the taste of something awful in my mouth, and I’d really like to get it out.”

Lala stares at him. Goro stares back at her, and then allows a small, pleasant smile to grace his features.

“I thought you stopped doing that, Mr. Detective Prince,” says Lala, frowning. Goro’s smile drops, and his mouth twists.

“Well, you wouldn’t turn down a paying customer, would you,” he retorts, and throws a few thousand yen on the counter for good measure. “Can I just get my next drink now? Please,” he bites out at the end, because he’s sober enough to know that it’s not Lala’s fault he’s like this, and he doesn’t feel like pathetically bar-crawling in the event he gets kicked out.

After a moment, a shot of shochu is placed in front of him, and he swallows it down without a second thought. Lala gives him another without being prompted this time, an unreadable look on her face.

“I know better to think I can tell you what to do,” she says, finally, as Goro clutches the glass closer to him. “I think it must be pretty bad this time, when you’re coming in here, smiling like that again. You’re welcome to drown your sorrows here for the night, but just remember—whatever you think you’re drinking away in these glasses will still be there tomorrow morning and the next.”

“I fucking know,” Goro says, and tosses back the next drink.

He stops counting how many shots he burns through after that. The lights grow increasingly hazy, and the space around him shudders with low noise, skirting the edges of his awareness. If there are any other patrons looking at him, Goro pays them no mind, for once. He remains silent, sharpening his focus on how the alcohol feels going down his throat and into his stomach, how it nestles in his chest like an old, ugly friend.

At some point, he feels something vibrate for the third time in his jacket pocket, and he struggles to read the notifications on his screen.

> **(9:19 PM)**
> 
> **Ann:** hey akira just called me
> 
> **Ann:** he told me what happened..
> 
> **Ann:** do u want to come over to my place???
> 
> **Ann:** i have a bunch of cake and ice cream in the fridge still
> 
> **Ann:** u don’t have to talk about it yet. u can just eat cake
> 
> **(9:22 PM)**
> 
> **Ann:** goro??
> 
> **(9:24 PM)**
> 
> **_Incoming call from Takamaki Ann_**

“Hello, Ann,” Goro says. He doesn’t remember when he even pressed down to pick up the call.

“ _Goro, where are you right now_?”

“I’m,” he pauses, and squints at the bright lights around him. “Somewhere. Shinjuku. Crossroads. Everything tastes awful, it’s fantastic.”

He thinks he hears Ann curse something under her breath. “ _Okay, shit. Alright, alright, I’m coming to pick you up, and then I’m taking you back to my place, yeah? You said you were at Crossroads?_ ”

“Yes,” Goro says. Oh. He remembers something. “Do you know that Akira used to work here? He liked telling me about the kinds of people he talked to when he bartended. They all sounded rather annoying, honestly—the salaryman with a stick up his ass, the guy who was probably part of the yakuza, the down-trodden woman who never shut the fuck up about how miserable she was, that bitch who always hit on minors. I don’t even fucking know why I remember all this shit, Akira is the one who—Akira—" He stumbles, tripping over the name. His mouth tastes like ashes, refusing to move, and he can’t recall why he started talking in the first place. The noise hums louder around him.

Ann is quiet on the other line.

“ _Goro_ ,” she starts, her voice even. “ _I’ll be there in 20 minutes._ ” She hangs up.

He doesn’t remember what happens next, but somehow he ends up on the train, his head buried in Ann’s shoulder. She smells nice. Her hand is wrapped around his. The last few hours are piecing together clumsily in his head, but one name cuts through the fog.

“Akira,” he says, and he doesn’t know what his voice sounds like, doesn’t know if it’s as open and broken as his drunk self hears it, but it makes Ann squeeze his hand even firmer.

“I know, Goro.”

She says nothing after that, and Goro closes his eyes, stops letting himself think.

* * *

**FEBRUARY 2, 2018**

One year after Akira keeps his promise to Goro and lets him die for the sake of humanity’s self-determination, Goro comes back.

After months of dodging Shido’s lackeys and slumming it in cheap motels and manga cafes and swearing Sae Nijima to secrecy, he drags his ass all the way to the sleepy town where Akira grew up. He learns his address after a few tedious conversations with the old locals (according to them, Akira’s father and mother are out of the country on a business trip, which makes Goro’s plans easier). Goro has deliberately made his appearance modest, unassuming—his hair now falls to a more even shape just beneath his ears, and he’s dressed himself up in a baggy hoodie and jeans. To anyone, he could be any average delinquent teenager, rather than the dead-not-dead boy he was, returning to visit another dead-not-dead boy from the grave.

When night finally comes and the town has lulled itself into an even quieter state—the countryside outside of Tokyo was unnerving as all fuck—Goro makes his move. The Kurusu family apartment is on the second story of the building, so he climbs up through their terrace, picks the lock, and slips through the door with all the deftness and stealth that years alone in the Metaverse had taught him. Goro supposes he could’ve just knocked, but nothing about how he acted around Akira seemed to make much sense.

He thinks that this way is much more fitting, anyway.

As he walks slowly to one of the rooms, the door slightly ajar, he catalogues the deafening silence of the apartment, the emptiness that could almost be mistaken for tidiness, the single pair of shoes and keys by the front door. It doesn’t seem like the household for a family of three, but Goro certainly wouldn’t consider himself to be the authority on the interior design for family-friendly homes.

He comes to a stop just outside the room, and peers in. It’s without a doubt Akira’s room, because Akira is snoring softly on Akira’s bed, with Akira’s cat nestled on top of Akira’s back. It’s dark, but Goro can see the way the faint light teeming from outside catches on Akira’s face, curling around his eternally messy hair.

It makes Goro’s chest go tight with an emotion he hasn’t felt in a while. He steps back, somehow not ready at all to deal with this, any of it, not when it’s been a year without having to see Akira like that, without having to face Akira at all, when the cat decides to be an asshole and wake up.

His blue eyes immediately zero in on Goro’s poorly hidden figure, and he yelps, “ _Akira_!”

Goro sees Akira startle and blearily come to, pushing himself to an upright position as Morgana jumps onto the floor and actually starts _hissing_ at Goro’s shadow, like the shitty furball he is.

“Morgana, literally, what the fuck,” Akira complains, still rubbing his eyes awake.

“We’re gonna get murdered _, look—_ ”

Akira’s eyes meet Goro’s, and Goro thinks he was stupid enough not to bolt when he should’ve.

“Akira, _do something_ , we’re getting burglarized—”

“Wait,” Akira says. “ _Akechi_?”

Fuck it. He might as well put an end to this.

“Hey,” Goro rasps, and steps into the room. Morgana makes an even higher-pitched yelp, but Goro ignores him. All he can really see is Akira, whose eyes are shot open, his face pale. “Don’t act as if you’re so surprised to see me.”

Akira stares at him, blank-faced, for a long moment. Goro tries not to shake and fiddles with the strings of his hoodie, passing it off as facetiousness. He regrets wearing it. He doesn’t even know how much he looks like himself, or himself as Akira knew him, or if he actually just looks like a common petty thief, caught breaking and entering. He still isn’t sure if he should just crawl back through the terrace window and sprint into the dead of night and pretend he was nothing more than a figment of Akira’s imagination. He’s certain that Akira would never forgive him for it once he realized the truth, but well—Goro has done his fair share of unforgivable actions.

“It was pathetically easy to break into your home,” Goro tries, since being a caustic asshole has always come naturally to him, and he needs something to focus on so that his hands stop trembling. “Have you considered investing in more complicated locks?”

Akira says nothing in response.

“Let me guess, you’d like to know how I’m even here,” continues Goro, voice airy and uncaring and definitely not on the edge of panic. Akira abruptly stands and steps towards him, and Goro stubbornly keeps talking because he refuses to let _Akira_ cow him into stunned silence, not when Goro is supposed to be the one with the element of surprise here. “It wasn’t that hard, blending into your little suburban hell here and simply asking the nearest old lady. Or, if you’d like to know earlier than that—"

“If I’m being honest,” Akira interrupts, and oh, he’s right in front of Goro, so close in proximity that Goro can breathe him in. “I don’t really care, at the moment.”

And then he grabs Goro’s wrist, tugs him forward, and kisses him. 

Goro makes a noise, low and keening in his throat, and instinctively threads one of his hands through Akira’s hair. The kiss doesn’t last that long, so he barely processes the dry, cool feel of Akira’s lips over his, the warmth of Akira’s hand over his skin. After a few moments, Akira draws back and drops another chaste peck onto Goro’s mouth, before completely pulling away.

“Did you even remember I was here,” Goro hears Morgana grumble as he leaves to another spot in the apartment, or to fuck off somewhere else in the town. He doesn’t really care.

Akira is looking at him, head tilted to the side. 

“So you are real,” he says.

What. “Of course I am.”

“I’m glad. I missed you.”

“Shut up.” Akira is still holding his wrist, fingers smoothing over the liquid beat of Goro’s pulse. This is what losing feels like, he thinks, a touch angrily, even as his blood warms further and further at the touch.

Akira gives a low laugh. “Yeah, that’s definitely you, Akechi.”

“You aren’t even going to ask any questions?”

“I have many, but it’s 3 AM, and I’m very tired,” Akira admits. “And while I’m sure there is a very long story behind how you came back, why you decided to break into my room when I was sleeping like some pervert, what inspired your time-skip hairstyle—” He begins moving back towards the bed, tugging Goro with him. Goro would normally object, being pulled around so lazily and carelessly like a fucking rag doll—but then he finds himself on the bed, staring across at Akira again, their bodies curled toward one another like long question marks. 

“You can tell me all of those things,” murmurs Akira, “so long as you’re here again in the morning, and I can make sure that you’re not some hallucination I’m having because I accidentally ate expired bread for dinner. Then I’ll listen.”

“That’s fucking disgusting,” Goro replies back in a furious whisper. “You just kissed me for the first time, after eating moldy bread?”

“I know,” Akira says, and the asshole sounds happy about it. He smiles sleepily at Goro. “I missed you.”

Goro’s chest hurts again. “You said that the first time.”

“Yeah.” Akira yawns. He gives Goro one more small, devastating smile. “If you end up staying, this time around, I’ll stop saying it.”

And then he hugs Goro to him, and his eyes droop shut. Goro is frozen in place, unsure, suddenly, of what to do with his body and the other one wrapped around it, their faces close enough that if Goro were to lean in, just a bit more, he could trace the shape of Akira’s lips a second time. He’s not sure if the heartbeat he’s hearing is his.

I missed you, too, Goro does not say, and does not think about what it means if he cradles Akira more closely to himself. They would have the morning to deal with that, and more.

* * *

**NOVEMBER 2, 2018**

The morning after Akira breaks up with him, Ann takes him out to brunch. She orders a plate of blood orange crepes while Goro orders a mimosa, ignoring Ann’s glare as he nurses his head in his hands.

“Aren’t you hungover?”

Goro sips on his drink. “I’ve found that the only surefire way to treat a hangover is by drinking again.”

Ann scrunches her nose at him, which means that she very much doubts him, but has learned better than to change his maladaptive habits. “How are you feeling?” she asks, then grimaces. “Sorry, stupid question.”

“It’s whatever. I’m fine.” Goro swallows the rest of his drink in one fluid gulp. These glasses were always so fucking small. “I want to kill Akira, but I suppose that’s standard practice for us."

“Did Akira even say why he was breaking up with you?”

“What, you haven’t spoken to him?”

“Well, he called me yesterday to let me know what happened, and then didn’t give many details past that,” Ann says. “I spent the rest of the night looking for you and holding your hair back while you puked your guts out in my bathroom.”

“God, don’t fucking remind me.” His head is pounding at the memory.

“Goro,” Ann says, in her serious Ann tone, even as there’s a dribble of orange sauce on her chin. “Do you feel like you need to talk to him though? There’s nothing wrong with wanting closure.”

“What’s there to say?” Goro scowls. “Akira finally got it through his thick skull how laughably incompatible we are, and he broke up with me. It was bound to happen eventually. I’m just annoyed that I wasn’t the one who got to stomp over his stupid, bleeding little heart.”

“Oh, Goro, you can’t possibly mean that.” He just looks at her. “Okay, I know you mean that a little bit. It’s just—you guys spent so long waiting for each other. And you were so happy. It doesn’t seem like that you really wanted this to happen.”

“So what if I didn’t?” Goro spits. “I’ve long gotten used to the fact that the _things I want_ are things that have never really mattered.” Not his mother staying alive, not his father coming in gallantly to save him in the aftermath, not enacting cold and calculated revenge on Shido, hell, not even wanting to _die_ , finally, in the steel trap of that engine room _—_ Goro’s life had never been about getting what he wanted, and that’s why this still fucking sucked, because Goro had let his guard down for once in his life and let himself get hopeful again and allowed Akira to dig his hands into the softest parts of Goro’s insides.

Ann’s lip wobbles, and Goro panics because he really doesn’t want to deal with a killer migraine _and_ making her cry on top of that. It’s too early to be exposed to this much emotion.

“Look, we don’t have to talk about it,” he settles on, a touch less harsh. “Talking about it is making my headache worse. Distract me with other things. How’s Suzui?”

It’s an obvious deflection, one that Ann pointedly sighs at, but she takes the bait anyways. “She’s good, we’re looking into studying abroad together this summer …” She cracks a soft smile at that, and Goro nods her along, takes a bite of his own food. It’s easier, listening to Ann talk about her and Shiho and the future they were cultivating for their budding life together, than it is to think about all the things that Goro wishes for, all the plans that have crumbled through his fingers already.

* * *

**FEBRUARY 3, 2018**

Goro does not leave in the morning. Akira’s parents will be gone for an unforeseeable amount of time, Akira says when they wake up, his eyebrows waggling, so Goro can stay however long he likes. Goro scowls at him, but still, he does not leave.

The day after he breaks into Akira’s family home and Akira kisses him for the first time, they have breakfast together. Goro tells him about his last year: about surviving the collapse of Maruki’s Second Reality, about being hunted by Shido’s subordinates, about being contacted by Sae, about begrudgingly accepting her help, about wondering, the whole time, if he was alive or not alive, real or simply a manifestation of someone else’s wishes again. Akira eats his eggs as Goro stares tiredly at a stain on the table and overshares more than he probably should.

“I think you’re real,” Akira says, chewing, when Goro finishes.

“You thought that last time, you idiot.”

“And now I’m right.” Akira nods sagely, pushing a steaming cup of coffee towards Goro. Oh. He didn’t realize Akira had gotten up to make it. “So now that all those evil fucks are gone, what’re your plans?”

As they discussed earlier, Goro’s latest plan consisted of staging a home invasion and surprising Akira from the dead, which didn’t really go as he anticipated on both fronts. “I have none.” He sips his coffee, rich and sweet how he used to drink it.

“In that case, wanna come back with me to Tokyo today?”

“You’re going back to Tokyo already?”

“Well, I’m supposed to scout a place with Ann today around 4 or 5, because I plan on moving back soon anyways. This place is pretty depressing, if you haven’t noticed already,” Akira says, thumbing through something on his phone. “And then we’re probably gonna get hammered later at her place. I’m crashing there. You should definitely come with us especially since, like you said, you have no plans.”

Goro breathes in, once. “There are several things wrong with what you just said,” he says. “One, I’ve barely told you that I’m alive, let alone your friends. Two, what makes you think I would get along with any of them? Three, you seem to be making plans with me at a remarkably quick pace, considering the fact you didn’t even know I was alive until a few hours ago.” And four, you kissed me last night and I slept in your bed and we still haven’t talked about that either, but Goro refrains from tacking that on as well because he’s not a fucking schoolgirl.

Without missing a beat, Akira responds, waving his phone around, “One, I could tell them, right now—with your permission. Two, it’s just Ann today, and Ann is literally one of the easiest people to talk to, ever. Once you ply her with some cake and one of those bubbly seltzers, she’s even funner to hang with. And three—well, you’re wrong.”

“I’m _wrong_?”

“You’re my rival, Goro,” Akira says. His given name sounds so easy and weightless in Akira’s voice that he’s startled out of complaining. “I never doubted for a second you would come back.”

Goro’s heart stutters at that, the fucking traitor. “Bullshit,” he grinds out, and pretends like there isn’t a faint blush crawling up his neck. Fuck, he shouldn’t have cut his hair this short. “I was gone for a year. You didn’t even see me leave Maruki’s Palace. You couldn’t have known that.”

“I suspected as much when Morgana came back, despite the Metaverse being gone,” says Akira. “But even then, I believed in you.”

He is going to kill Akira. “Stop saying shit like that, you sentimental fool.”

“ _I’m_ the sentimental one, sure.” Akira looks at him knowingly. “ _I’m_ not the one who decided to miraculously resurrect and make my grand reappearance on the one-year anniversary of the last time we spoke to each other.”

“Mere coincidence,” Goro lies.

Akira raises an eyebrow at that, but thankfully backs down. Goro counts it as his victory. “Sure,” Akira says, a ghost of a smirk on his lips. “So, are you coming or not?”

An hour and a half later, Goro is on a train to Aoyama with Akira and his cat stuffed into a bag. Akira is texting Takamaki, presumably about Goro’s presence. They’re seated next to each other in a corner next to the train door. Akira’s thigh is brushing his, while Morgana is steadily eyeing him from his peripheral (again, Goro pays him no attention). He buries his head in a book he swiped from Akira’s bookshelf before they left. _No Longer Human_ is a rather depressing read—he’s surprised to see how well-worn Akira’s copy of the book is—but it serves as a sobering distraction against the heat of the body next to him, face lit up by whatever inane mobile game he’s playing on his phone.

They make it off the train platform, and Goro has two seconds to be greeted with the sight of Tokyo again until his vision flashes with something blonde and pink and red, and he hears a voice squealing, “ _Akira_!”

Takamaki claims Akira in a fierce, close hug, and Akira laughs, wraps his arms around her just as strongly. Goro shifts from one foot to another, uncomfortable. They touch each other so easily, Goro thinks, envy dripping into his veins like venom. Almost like they were—but he and Akira—

“Akechi,” Takamaki says, and she turns the 1000 watts of her smile on him, radiant and all-encompassing. “I’m really glad to see that you’re here.”

If she means physically here, in Tokyo, or here, as in not dead, Goro doesn’t care to ask. “Thank you,” he says, stiffly, and gives a jerky nod. He can’t stop staring at how she and Akira are still joined, how her arm is wrapped familiarly around Akira’s waist.

“We can talk more about it later, I’m sure,” she says. She unwinds herself from Akira— _finally_ —and reaches down to pet the cat, who gazes up at her with blatant adoration. “Good to see you, too, Morgana.”

“Lady Ann,” the cat swoons, so lovestruck it sickens Goro.

“Alright, are you ready to see the place?” says Takamaki, clapping her hands together. “It shouldn’t be too far from here.”

She takes them to an old building near her and Akira’s old high school, the outside unfurling with quaint greenery and flowers. “This place used to belong to one of Shiho’s family friends,” she explains as they make their way up to the top level, “but they recently moved to the countryside to start their own farm.”

“So, essentially, the reverse of what you’re doing,” Goro tells Akira.

“What? I don’t live on a farm,” Akira says, sounding near-offended.

“I don’t know, you are _kinda_ from the middle of nowhere,” Ann teases, shooting Goro a grin as she does so. Goro doesn’t know what to do with his face back, so he lets his mouth curve up, ever so slightly. Takamaki is one of those people that can interact with others as if she’s known them her whole life. “Our little country bumpkin.”

“Shut up, I’m practically a Tokyo boy by this point,” Akira mutters to himself. “Saved from the city from God and everything, that has to count for something.”

The apartment they arrive at is tiny, and a bit dusty. It opens up to a small balcony, shaded by the wild greenery from outside. Akira immediately steps outside to survey the area.

“Cool.” Akira stares out from the terrace for a few moments, and then turn backs to Takamaki. “I’ll take it, thanks.”

Goro rolls his eyes, while Takamaki gapes at him. “You don’t want to look at the rest of the place?”

“I lived in an attic for almost a year,” Akira points out. “This place is pretty perfect next to it. It’s close to the uni. It has cool trees. It has a kitchen. I don’t need to spend any more time deliberating, honestly. Just give me the proper contact info and paperwork, and I’ll be all set.”

“You know him,” Morgana intones, from his spot on the balcony. He looks just as resigned. “He’s already made up his mind.”

“God, you’re impossible,” Takamaki groans. “Fine, I’ll text Shiho and let her know. I guess we can just go back to my place now.”

“Yes,” Akira croons. “ _Alcohol_.”

Takamaki’s house is bigger than Akira’s cheerless childhood home, but just as empty. Her parents are also on an international trip, Takamaki explains, airily, with the tone of someone who has explained this circumstance many, many times. Hearing it simply makes Goro shrug—he was used to life without parental influence and interference.

Akira makes a beeline to the kitchen while Takamaki shows Goro her living room. He emerges, victorious, and rejoins them with three glasses, a 12-pack of Chu-Hi, several bottles of soju, what seems to be a few packs of juice boxes, and a single large bottle of something else, labeled in English lettering.

“Bon appetit, children,” Akira says somberly, and waves around a Chu-Hi in his hand. Morgana turns his nose up, and leaves to meander upstairs.

“Oh, jeez, you’re starting _now_?” Takamaki says, disgusted.

“Early bird gets the worm.”

Goro eyes the abundance of alcohol before him, and blanches. He tended to not get intoxicated in front of other people his age, or if he did, he thankfully had gaps in his memories that allowed him to forget. Goro’s experience with substances had been a solitary and angry one, usually when he was pissed as all fuck at Shido, or when he was bored and numb and needed something to kick him back to life. Sometimes, Shido’s lackeys had illegally taken Goro out on a whim to their evening ventures in Shinjuku, egging Goro on to take shot after shot to prove his mettle. Goro always had, shot after shot, to make them eat their stupid shit-eating grins.

His tolerance is probably frightening at this point, but he’s uncertain if he wants to be this kind of vulnerable in front of Takamaki, and even more so, _Akira_.

“I’ll pass,” he says, after mulling the thought over in his head a dozen times.

“Yeah, you seem pretty lightweight to me anyways,” Akira says.

Or not. “What did you just say.”

“You just don’t look like someone that can handle their beer, I don’t know,” Akira says, flippantly, but there is no question about the challenge in his voice, which Goro rises to meet as immediately and petulantly as he has every challenge Akira and every other bastard have shot his way, smiling dangerously. 

“Fuck off and die,” Goro says, and snatches the can from Akira’s hand. He promptly downs it one go, crushes the can in his hands when he’s done, and tosses it at Akira.

“Holy shit,” Takamaki says, hand over her mouth. 

“Holy shit,” Akira echoes, but then he shakes himself out of it before Goro can become even self-satisfied. “Okay, fine, that was just a can of glorified soda. Anyone with any proficiency can do that.” 

Because he knew Akira would say as much, because Akira is a bastard, Goro picks up the clear bottle of something and starts pouring it into his glass generously. Without another word, he downs that, too. It’s most definitely vodka, from the way it burns Goro’s throat like low-grade battery acid. He doesn’t break eye contact with Akira as he sets the glass down and grins, with teeth, even as his vision wanes a bit at the corners.

“I think you’re normally supposed to take that as a shot,” Takamaki says. “Or with some kind of chaser.”

“Only if your tolerance is that pathetic,” Goro says, mockingly, eyes not leaving Akira’s.

Akira visibly swallows, and his eyes flit from Goro to the bottle of vodka. Takamaki is already shaking her head, as Akira holds out a hand and tells her, “Ann, please pour the same amount into my glass.”

“Akira—” Takamaki begins to warn.

“Ann, _please_.”

Seconds into chugging the vile thing, Akira chokes and spits out the vodka and hastily tears open a juice box. Takamaki laughs her ass off while Goro crosses his arms, and tuts. “How disappointing, Kurusu,” he says, lips curled. “Guess you weren’t as proficient as you believed yourself to be.”

“God, I’m definitely texting Ryuji about this later,” Takamaki cackles, snapping a picture of Akira’s comatose form on her phone. Goro didn’t know that she was this mean-spirited. His respect for her begrudgingly increases. She turns to Goro with unfiltered mirth shining in her eyes. “How are you so good at this?”

“Oh, I may be just a natural,” Goro lies, pleased at the praise despite himself. While not tipsy, he can already feel the alcohol seeping into his blood flow. “Are you going to try doing that as well?” he deftly redirects, gesturing to the prone figure of Akira on the floor, groaning.

“Oh, no, I’m much more self-aware than Akira is,” Takamaki replies cheerfully. She fishes out a smaller shot glass from the table. “However, I’ll take a shot with you in solidarity, to commemorate Akira’s death.”

“Mean,” Akira whimpers from his spot on the floor. Goro takes another shot with Takamaki. He finishes the rest of Akira’s failed drink in front of him, for good measure, just for the pleasure of Akira glaring up at him.

“You’re insane,” Akira mutters, when he finally rises, grabbing a bottle of peach soju to cradle close to him.

“Yes,” Goro says, and takes the bottle from Akira.

Later into the night, they’ve gone through the entire pack of Chu-Hi, most of the soju, and three-quarters of the vodka. Takamaki is making her way through the rest of the juice boxes, red shining high in her cheeks as she hums some English song to herself. Goro thinks that her singing voice, while off-key, sounds pleasant. Somehow, Akira’s head has made its way comfortably onto Goro’s shoulder, Akira barely hanging onto consciousness next to him. His hair smells nice. Clean. Goro just barely resists the urge to run his hands through it again, like he had the night before. It’s harder to not think about it, the memory blurry beneath the recesses of his mind.

“You’re the lightweight,” he murmurs under his breath, but Akira, predictably, doesn’t seem to hear him.

“Man, I still can’t believe you’re here.” He looks up, and Takamaki is cocking her head at him, bemused. She idly plays with the straw of her juice box between her fingers. “We really thought you were gone for good this time, when we left Maruki’s Palace and didn’t see you with us. It was kinda hard to swallow, at first, thinking about what might’ve happened to you.”

“I’m like a cockroach,” Goro says. “I’ll never fucking die.”

Takamaki snorts. “Maybe.” She goes silent for another few moments, fiddling with her hands, before speaking up again. “I—we didn’t really get to thank you, for all that you did.”

Oh. Oh, they’re having this conversation. “You don’t have to.”

Takamaki shakes her head. “No, I want to,” she says, firmly. “You were there for Akira when all of us were caught up in our own realities, and then you stayed, even when you didn’t have to. And I know you didn’t do it for us, or maybe even for Akira, but it means a lot that you spent those last days fighting alongside us. It doesn’t make everything you’ve done go away, of course—which, okay, probably not the best time to bring this up, kinda awkward, but. Yeah. I don’t think you’re as bad as a person as you think you are. And I’m really glad that I got this opportunity to tell you this.” She pauses, glancing at Akira, who is snoring softly next to him. “He’s really happy that you’re back, too, for the record.”

Something in Goro’s chest tightens. “Really?” he says, the surprise naked in his voice before he can stop himself. “I genuinely can’t tell. He didn’t even seem surprised when I showed up at his house.”

“Akira is the king of not showing his emotions properly, if you haven’t noticed,” Takamaki points out wryly. “And you didn’t see how he was for the past few months. Just earlier, when you guys got off the train, that was the happiest I’d seen him in ages, trust me.”

Goro lets his eyes slide back to Akira. Akira, who’d taken Goro breaking into his empty, parentless home in stride, who’d kissed Goro to prove that he was real, who’d made him breakfast in the morning and dragged him with him on his trip to Tokyo, thoughtlessly, cheerfully. “I see,” he says, throat dry.

Takamaki scrutinizes him, the same curious expression on her face. Whatever else she seems to be thinking, she shakes herself out of it, standing up and stretching. “Anyways, I totally dig your new hair,” she says, tone bright again. Goro blinks up at her and brings a hand up to brush the shorter ends of his hair. “I’m gonna go wash my face, then grab some cake and other snacks. Do you want some?”

“Yes,” Goro says, drunk brain working on autopilot. Takamaki giggles and goes to another part of the house, leaving just him and Akira in the living room.

He lets his head tilt, ever so slightly, against Akira’s, and doesn’t pull away when he feels him rustle awake.

“Oh, fuck, what time is it,” Akira groans, the noise vibrating through Goro’s shoulder.

“Shut up,” Goro drawls, on instinct. He glances at his watch. “Barely midnight. You’re pitiable.”

“Hey,” Akira retorts. “Mean.”

“I weep at your disapproval.”

“Stop being sarcastic and hot,” he grumbles, as Goro fights down the blush creeping onto his skin. He blames it on the tipsiness. Akira lifts his head up to stare at Goro. “You good?”

“Fucking great,” Goro replies, and despite his tone, actually means it.

“Cool,” Akira says. He stares at him for another moment, before hesitantly resting his hand against Goro’s. “Hey, I know we didn’t really talk about what happened last night—”

“And we don’t need to—”

“And we don’t need to, if you don’t want to,” Akira finishes, raising an eyebrow. His face is close to Goro’s again, eyelashes sweeping across his face delicately, mouth turned upward—just like last night, just like every one of Goro’s stupid fucking fantasies that he would never admit to having. “You wanna just make out on Ann’s couch for a bit?”

Goro allows himself to think he’s drunker than he actually is when he responds, quickly and emphatically, “ _God, yes_.” And then he tugs his hands through Akira’s hair and pulls, delighting in the sound Akira makes when he slants his mouth over his, teeth sliding into his bottom lip and biting down, roughly. Akira leans immediately into it and makes another noise that Goro swallows, hands still tangled in the knots of Akira’s ridiculous, soft curls. It’s strange, Goro thinks, how wondrously familiar this all feels, holding Akira like this, feeling Akira meet him, kiss for bite for kiss, every step of the way. He is greedy for his warmth, his weight against him, and he pulls harder.

“You guys,” he hears a voice, resigned but not surprised, call out from nearby. “What the hell.”

Akira slides off Goro’s mouth wetly, despite Goro inwardly seething at the loss of contact. “Um,” he says, as eloquent as ever. “It’s not what it looks like?”

“In my house, though,” Takamaki bemoans. She joins them once again on the couch, albeit distinctively farther away. She places a few plates of chocolate cake in front of them, her own in hand. Goro slowly untangles himself from Akira and snatches one for himself. Spooning a bite into her mouth, she eyes the two of them skeptically. “So—are you guys, like, a thing now? It’s totally fine because some of us saw it coming anyways, and I’m completely supportive as your friend, even if you did just defile my couch—”

Goro says nothing at that, instead choosing to eat his cake silently. Akira chuckles, a pitch higher than normal. “It’s complicated,” he settles on, rubbing his head.

“Have you guys talked about it?”

Goro chews, swallows. “It’s complicated,” he repeats, in a flat tone.

Takamaki is unimpressed, clearly. “I see,” she says, doubtful, but says nothing more on the subject. “I forgot my water in the kitchen. I’ll be back. Don’t make out on my couch again, or I’ll tell Ryuji. I’m already telling Shiho.” She leaves again.

“So … I know we said that we don’t have to talk about it,” Akira says, once the silence has stretched on. “But, just to check, are we dating?”

When Goro used to think on his relationship with Akira, or fantasize about its (doomed) future, _dating_ was a word that never really surfaced—rivals, absolutely; arch-nemeses, if he was feeling a bit more melodramatic and moodier; maybe friends, if he was a bit drunker. A murderer and his murder victim, he would even think at times, darkly fond—but _boyfriends_ is not a relationship term he would have ever thought to associate with Kurusu Akira. It didn’t seem fitting, given that everything he and Akira were to each other, with all the things he made Goro unwittingly feel, constantly.

However … it also implied some form of exclusivity between the two of them, which, thinking of Akira with other people, Akira’s hair being touched by other people, Akira being pulled into fierce, long hugs by other people, that sharply discomforting feeling roiling in Goro's stomach every single time—the term might be useful for some things.

“I suppose so, if you want to be so formal about it,” he says, carefully not looking at Akira’s face.

“Cool.” Akira reaches up to drop another kiss against Goro’s neck, drawing back when Takamaki comes back into the room.

“Oh, cute,” she comments. She says it like she actually means it. It’s mortifying to Goro.

They pass the rest of the night eating cake and bullying Akira, who seems weirdly happy about it, despite his indignance. The next morning, when their heads are pounding but Goro is still, smugly, better off than them, Takamaki sees them off at the train station. She pulls Akira into another one of her effortless hugs, whispering something into his ear. Goro tries not to eavesdrop and stares off into something else, uncaring.

“Hey, if you ever wanna move back here, too,” Takamaki says, turning to him, “Shiho’s family has more connections with other real estate guys across the city. I’m sure we could find you a place, too. Just text me, ‘k? I saved my number in your phone.”

“Oh, alright then.” He bites his lip, then says, “Thanks again. For what you said last night. I meant when I said you didn’t have to, because I didn’t think you would actually mean it. But you did. So thanks, Takamaki.”

Takamaki’s smile brightens even more. “Of course,” she says, and adds on, “And you don’t have to be so formal—just call me Ann.”

Later, when Akira is napping again on his shoulder, Goro swipes thorugh his phone. Takamaki—who has saved herself as _Ann_ in Goro’s contacts—has sent him a message.

> **(11:43 AM)**
> 
> **Ann:** it was nice to hang with you !!!! xoxo
> 
> **Ann:** hmu the next time ur in the city (: (: i’d love to talk shit with u about akira and eat more cake

  
“Told you she was the easiest to talk to,” Akira says, without opening his eyes. Goro elbows him away, ignoring his affronted squawking as he sends off a reply.

> **(11:59 AM)**
> 
> **Goro:** Yes.
> 
> **Goro:** I fucking hate him. (:

* * *

**NOVEMBER 5, 2018**

Goro wakes up, clinging to one of his pillows, and realizes that it smells like Akira. When he tosses that away from him, he wraps himself into a cocoon in his blanket—which also smells like Akira. It dawns on him that the whole bed fucking smells like him, Akira’s scent clinging to the damn sheets, the mattress. They stayed at each other’s apartments so often that Goro would often forget that they lived in separate homes. In Goro’s apartment, Akira liked to prowl around like the stray cats he was so terribly fond of, constantly on the search for new places to curl up and nap, which often turned out to be places where Goro slept, too. Goro would crash on the couch, and he would wake up to Akira on the other side, legs tangled in his own. Goro would snore, face down in his bed, and Akira would be a heavy weight spooning him from the side. Goro would lie on the floor, awake but exhausted beyond belief from that day’s stint in existence, and Akira would lie down in a spot next to him, not even touching Goro, the both of them staring up at nothing.

Akira broke up with him four days ago, and Goro’s bed is now empty and cloying with his scent. He stares at the small strands of black hair he can see on the sheets, the same shapeless feeling swimming in his eyes, and thinks about hiring a cleaner for the whole stupid fucking apartment.

* * *

**FEBRUARY 14, 2018**

“No,” Goro tells Akira. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not,” Akira needles.

“It’s asinine.”

“It’s not asinine to show _affection_ and _lo—_ ”

“You shit for brains, you already know that I—” Goro starts, and then abruptly stops because this is another one of Akira’s clever traps to make Goro admit that he feels much more than he lets on. He hates falling for these traps, specifically because Akira would never shut up every time Goro fell for them.

“That you what, Goro?” purrs Akira. His grin is crooked, and Goro wants to smear it over all his fucking face, because he is a disgusting human being, and it does things to him when Akira looks at him like that.

“That I want to eviscerate your insides and turn them into a jacket,” he snarls. Akira is a disgusting human being, too, because his grin stretches even wider at Goro’s nastiness, and he presses a sloppy kiss to the corner of his mouth, shamelessly high-spirited. Goro curls his lip at the spit clinging to his cheek, but he doesn’t tear himself away. It’s 12 PM, and they’re still lying in bed, the noise of Tokyo humming just outside the room. The city is alive in a way Akira’s old home had never been. Akira is Akira no matter where he is, Goro thinks, but here, with the room shaded by the old dogwood outside the building, with his hands twining into Goro’s increasingly longer hair, Akira seems—happier, less guarded. 

“I don’t see why this day created by capitalist shit-lords appeals to you anyways,” Goro complains, running a hand across his face.

“Oh, it doesn’t,” Akira says. “I’m pretty sure I spent the last Valentine’s Day comforting Ryuji and eating chocolate his mom made.”

“Sounds like Sakamoto.” Goro snorts. “Why did you even bring it up then?”

“To make you squirm, obviously,” Akira says, as he wriggles his feet against Goro’s thighs. The sensation makes Goro’s lungs seize up, and he lets out a choked-out wheeze, trying to pry Akira away from him.

“I don’t want your fucking disgusting feet on me, _get off_ —”

“You don’t have to hide your foot fetish anymore, Goro,” Akira says seriously, his toes trailing higher and higher up Goro’s thigh. “I accept you wholeheartedly.”

Goro catches Akira’s foot in his hand, and squeezes once, menacingly. “I think you have severely underestimated my capacity for violence,” he says pleasantly, and then he shoves Akira off the bed in one rough movement.

Akira fights back with a vengeance, pouncing on Goro immediately and dragging him down via his ankle to the floor with him. Squawking, Goro ends up on the ground, his limbs loose and clumsy over Akira. Akira stares up at him with a shit-eating grin, hair tousled, and the sight shouldn’t make Goro’s pulse quicken all over again.

“I don’t care about this day, but I care about you, and you should know that,” Akira says, as if he doesn’t make it known to Goro every day by the mere fact he is still here, and he is still _Goro’s_ in all his endlessly infuriating, brilliant multitudes. “So let’s not give in to our capitalist overlords, and just stay in and fuck all over the apartment, yeah?”

He tilts his hips up against Goro as an invitation, and Goro smirks and slants his mouth against Akira’s in a motion that is quickly becoming second-nature, letting his body work through whatever emotion is burning its way through his bloodstream, unbidden.

* * *

**NOVEMBER - DECEMBER ???, 2018**

Goro goes out drinking again. And again. He does not tell Ann. One night, he thinks he propositions a man with black, messy hair and crooked glasses, because some way or the other, his dick ends up in someone’s throat in a bar closet, while he pants uselessly into his fist. The orgasm that eventually trembles through him isn’t even that good. When he comes, he feels another name hiss through his lips, his head knocking forcefully back against the wall behind him.

“Uh, dude, my name’s Ren,” his one-night stand says, wiping his mouth.

“I don’t care,” Goro spits. He returns the favor though, and gets down on his knees, body sinking to the ground, if only to keep his mind delightfully blank of anything else.

* * *

**APRIL 21, 2018**

The thing is—Goro was not the kind of person to be happy for extended amounts of time and be content with it. He distrusts any prolonged length of positivity or joy—which, yes, is fucked up, he’s self-aware enough to realize, thanks, _Maruki,_ but you don’t get to work alongside Shido and all the other shady bastards of Japan and survive by being _optimistic_. Goro survived the life he chose for himself by destroying people’s lives and being the worst possible fucking person he could be.

So, when Akira slides a cup of coffee towards him in the evening, for the thousandth or so time without Goro asking, and Goro accepts it with a thoughtless, careless “I love you,” the first time he’s said the words in years, he does not freak out. He does not, blank-faced, set the coffee down on the kitchen counter and then promptly walk away from Akira. He does not stop to revel in the image of Akira, speechless, his mouth shaped in a small ‘O.’ He does not go to the bathroom, lock the door behind him, sink to the floor, and quietly, sensibly, scream into his fists.

After a while, he hears a light knock on the door. “Goro,” Akira’s voice calls from outside. “You okay?”

Goro does not respond. The bathroom does not have a window that he can jump out from, he despairs. There is no choice but to pick himself up slowly, rinse his face and hands, and open the door again to Akira’s half-raised fist, briskly shouldering past him to the kitchen.

Akira follows him, expressionless. Before he can open his mouth, probably to say some placating shit that Goro can’t deal with at the moment, or worse, say it _back_ , Goro says, sharply, “No.”

“No?” Akira mimics, drawing his arms across his chest. “So we’re not talking about it?”

“Talking about what,” Goro asks, just to be nasty, ignoring the way it makes Akira’s eyes narrow further at him.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Akira says, which Goro physically cannot do, and Akira knows this.

“Our whole thing is not talking about this kind of trivial bullshit,” Goro snaps. “I don’t see why we should start now.”

“I wouldn’t call this particular instance ‘trivial bullshit.’” Akira is frowning, and using his actual serious Akira voice, the one that draws his face into a completely unreadable slate. He hates how Akira can disappear inside himself effortlessly like this, the same way Goro used to hate how he could barely contain the maelstrom of vulgarity and fury underneath his brittle, polite mask.

“It _is_ ,” Goro insists. This conversation feels familiar, worn out, the spools of an old film reel winding slowly between them. It’s like watching Yoshizawa witness her sister die all over again, watching Maruki toil in all his regrets, watching Akira make the choice between the world and him—he feels out of body, weightless, nostalgic for a moment that isn’t even his own, a moment that he knows he can’t keep.

Akira still has that frustratingly vacant look on his face. “Okay,” he relents, and says nothing more. He gently brushes past Goro to grab something from the fridge, and he starts cooking dinner, silently.

Great. So now Goro’s gone and fucked up this, too, just like he has everything else in his life, because Goro is an awful fucking person. It figures that he was never allowed to keep anything that he liked. Shido poisoned him, and Goro poisoned everything else that he loved. Like father, like son, he thinks, and a laugh threatens to erupt hysterically out of him. He watches Akira for another moment, who is turned away from him, and he leaves to go lie down in the bedroom.

Goro doesn’t know long he lies there, reading the same sentence of a book he picked up arbitrarily from Akira’s nightstand. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t just get back and go back to his own apartment, but his body is stuck against the sheets, and the air is alluring with the smell of coffee and curry. Time sluggishly moves around him, and then he feels a weight settle lightly next to him.

“Hey.”

Goro continues to peer imperiously down at his book as Akira smooths a hand across Goro’s forehead.

“Dinner’s ready,” he tells him. “You want me to grab a plate for you?”

“Oh,” Goro rasps out. He coughs. “I’m not that hungry.”

Akira graciously reminds him, “The last thing you ate was a pack of Pocky at noon.”

“I didn’t realize you made a habit of critiquing my eating patterns,” Goro says, bitchy because he can be.

Akira huffs, and then scoots in closer to Goro, pushing them further into the middle of the bed. He plucks the book from Goro’s hands and tosses it to a corner of the room. Goro glares at him.

Akira just snorts next to him, dubious. “I doubt you were actually reading the robot vampire erotica that Futaba left here the last time she visited.”

He scowls. He didn’t notice. “Don’t make assumptions.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Akira promises.

Goro finally lulls his head around to make stilted eye contact with Akira. Despite his light tone, Akira still has that doll’s look on his face, careful and composed, like he is waiting for Goro to say the magic words to break him out of it. If he could find the perfect combination of images and phrases to demonstrate to Akira how exactly and meticulously fucked-up Goro is, he would. But Goro has just this: his exhaustion, his impatience, his teeth always poised to slice and snarl and bite, to say the meanest and coldest thing he can in any given situation.

“I—” Goro starts, unsure of what he’s about to say.

“I love you, too.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“I won’t say anything more than that,” Akira says gently, and presses a kiss to Goro’s nose, once. Keeping his promise, he stands up and heads back to the kitchen wordlessly, as quickly as he came in, leaving behind a dazed Goro on the bed. For one second, he begins to think, again, that this is what losing tastes like, that it tastes like Goro fucking up his very first _I love you_ and Akira saying it back, gracefully, effortlessly. He waits for the resentment to come back up like a tangle of iron wires and choke him, as it always does.

But there is a flutter underneath the hollow part of his sternum, and Goro replays the words over and over until he finds that he’s not bitter or resentful or unhappy about losing anything at all. Akira loves him. Akira loves him. Kurusu Akira loves Akechi Goro.

Goro thinks back to the last time he felt like this, and he’s surprised to realize that it arouses a memory of Robin Hood—of awakening and summoning him, of being blessed by some God when he is just fourteen and skinny-limbed and surviving on the scraps others gave him, of thinking, for the first time in his small, shit stain of a life, that he could have a future, if he just reached his hands out and grasped it. 

* * *

**DECEMBER 10, 2018**

On day whatever of Akira accomplishing the metaphysical equivalent of skinning Goro alive, Goro is debating about whether or not he should heat up that packet of instant yakisoba—or if he should just say fuck it and sleep away his hunger like he’s been doing for the past week—when he receives a text.

> **(6:21 PM)**
> 
> **Kitagawa:** Hello, Akechi.
> 
> **Kitagawa:** Would you happen to be free right now? I’d like to speak with you.
> 
> **Kitagawa:** It’s about Akira.

Of course, it is, thinks Goro. Everything is about fucking Akira.

He hesitates over the message, hovering over the _Delete_ option. The only one of the original Phantom Thieves he’s truly close to is Ann—Ann, who pushed herself into his life effortlessly, bringing with her a shared love for sweets, a hard-won stubbornness, and a ridiculous capacity for empathy. Like everyone else in her life, like Akira, like Suzui Shiho, like that rival coworker of hers, Goro was eventually won over, if not a little reluctantly at first. Even if she is also Akira’s friend, she is still Goro’s—and somehow, that means something to him.

Kitagawa, though, is not his friend. 

He decides to put down his phone down and ignore the message, because he owes Kitagawa jack shit. He continues to lie in bed, staring up at nothing. What did Kitagawa even want with him, Goro thinks. Who did Kitagawa think he was, thinking he could interrupt his night like this, lording the topic of Akira over him as if he knew Goro?

After a few moments, he picks his phone back up again, traitorously, and his fingertips type out a curt response. 

> **(6:24 PM)**
> 
> **Goro:** Yes.
> 
> **Goro:** I suppose.
> 
> **Goro:** Where am I meeting you, exactly?
> 
> **(6:24 PM)**
> 
> **Kitagawa:** Excellent.
> 
> **Kitagawa:** Please meet me at the Aquaroom.
> 
> **Kitagawa:** I’ll forward you the address. It shouldn’t be too far from your university apartment.

So that’s how, 45 minutes later, Goro ends up meeting Kitagawa Yusuke at a small seafood restaurant in Shibuya. Kitagawa greets him pleasantly when he arrives, and the server takes them to a booth in the corner of the dining room.

“I’m fond of the unagi entrée that they serve here,” says Kitagawa serenely, as his eyes scan the menu. “It’s exquisite. Haru once took me here, on my request, as a gift for assisting with the design for her terrarium.”

“I see.” With the mention of Okumura, Goro is already dreading the rest of the conversation. He makes a mental note to order more alcohol.

The server arrives shortly afterwards to take their order, and Goro is left to stare at Kitagawa, who gazes back at him intensely. It reminds Goro of their brief days together in the Metaverse—whatever else he thinks of Kitagawa, Goro admits that he still held a certain measure of respect for how singular and unyielding his focus could be.

“Why did you call me here?” Goro bites out, no longer unable to stand the unnerving stare-off between them.

Kitagawa merely tilts his head at him, his expression considering.

“Did you know that I once harbored feelings for Akira, as well?” The abruptness of the question catches Goro off guard—he mutely shakes his head, and Kitagawa continues. “It was when we were still teenagers. Akira is objectively beautiful, as I’m sure you’re well-aware of, but more than that, he is unwaveringly and immeasurably kind. He was the first person I confided in after Madarame’s change of heart—he barely knew me at the time, and yet he always found the time to listen to me. It’s hard to not be enamored with an individual who made me feel as open and profoundly emotional as he did.”

“Is there any point to what you’re saying?” asks Goro, hands uncomfortably tight at his sides. It’s hard to listen to Kitagawa spout about the wondrous, brilliant joy that Akira is—and, Goro’s chest twinging with the sharp ache of envy, even harder to look at him. Even before he and Akira dated, he speculated on the possibility of Akira having feelings for Kitagawa Yusuke, with his delicate features and sweeping angles, the way his long limbs cut a graceful figure in any room. He had Goro’s tragedy, the same piece of shit father, the same ghost of a mother—but none of the façade he’d cultivated to cope with it, seeming to be in possession of all the earnestness and sincerity Goro used to shed each day like snakeskin.

Akira would have loved you, and he would’ve stayed, Goro thinks bitterly, and clutches his hands tighter against him.

“I had feelings for Akira because of what he moved me to do, because of the kind of artist he inspired me to become, time and time again,” Kitagawa barrels on, uncaring of Goro’s antagonism. “But, upon reflection of that period in our lives, I don’t believe that my romantic feelings were truly ever about the person _Akira_ was.”

“The person that he was?”

“Yes.” Kitagawa nods, running a finger along the condensation of his glass. “Akira rarely chose to divulge personal information about himself, and instead deigned to listened to the plights of others. He was exceptional at listening, but I realized that it was only because he allowed so much more space for his companions to speak, and little room for himself. In more symbolical terms, I suppose you could consider Akira the blank canvas upon which many of us poured our hearts into.”

Goro sneers, even as the truth of what Kitagawa is saying resonates in some hollow part of himself. “Is this some pathetic plea to get me to feel sorry for Akira? Because, if he hasn’t told you, _he_ broke up with _me_. I doubt he needs any pity from me, of all people.”

“Yes, I don’t think Akira has ever needed any of our pity,” Kitagawa agrees easily, his face thoughtful. “I didn’t mean to paint him as some kind of victim. But I think you may be mistaken as to why Akira decided to terminate his relationship with you.”

Goro scoffs. “I know exactly why.” He doesn’t need Kitagawa to tell him exactly what kind of unstable wreck Goro is. They both know his truest self looked like.

It only took months for Akira to remember that, too.

Kitagawa shakes his head. “This can partially be attributed to speculation, of course,” he says, almost absently. “But I suppose that’s why Joker was able to wield so many Personas so fluidly—Akira himself understood what it meant to wear a variety of different masks and to adapt constantly to the needs and wants of others. But, as all great artists know, appearance can only account for so much. It’s what lurks underneath the surface that reveals true quality of character. And,” he trails off, “I think that’s what Akira realized, and why he felt like he was ultimately doing a disservice to you by continuing your relationship while still operating underneath his litany of masks.”

There’s a faint ringing in Goro’s ears, and he swallows, hard.

“I understand what it’s like,” Kitagawa says, more softly, “to welcome self-hatred and self-recrimination when you lack familiarity with anything else. When you are faced with the constant threat of abuse, it seems easiest to weather it yourself and, worst of all, to eventually think that you deserve it because of the person it has turned you into. I experienced a similar endeavor when I was under the tutelage of Madarame.” Here, Kitagawa finally looks away from Goro. His face is drawn tight. “So I can see why Akira breaking up with you may have led you to believe that it was wholly your fault. From your perspective, it can be the only logical conclusion. However, from what I can gather from speaking to Akira, and from coming to understand him as well, Akira doesn’t think that at all. Rather, it’s clearer to me that Akira chose to end things with you not because of who _you_ are, but because who _he_ was, or whom he felt like he was slowly becoming.”

Not for the first time in the conversation, Goro feels out-of-place, like he is bearing witness to something that he shouldn’t. He didn’t ask Kitagawa to pour his heart out like this. He certainly didn’t ask Akira to give him anything more than himself, to kick Goro to the curb once he performed any kind of actual self-reflection without a faux therapist shoving it in his face.

Kitagawa is still staring at him, sincere and intense as ever.

Goro opens his mouth, that reflexive acridness on the tip of his tongue, a lifetime’s worth of nasty remarks thickening his throat, waiting to tide over.

Instead, all he manages to say is:

“You talk too fucking much.” 

“Oh,” Kitagawa says. He frowns. “That’s rather rude, don’t you think?’

Goro must be getting softer than he realized, because at that, the fight leaves his body in one steady swoop. Exhaustion settles in to replace it, and he leans further back into his seat, fists finally unwinding at his sides. Kitagawa assesses him once more, eyes gliding over Goro, before he begins to speak again, slower and more hesitant.

“I sometimes regret not befriending you as Ann did, after all this time,” he confesses. “I admit that I was reticent at first because a part of me believed that in doing so, I would betray Futaba somehow. If I am being truly honest, though, a greater part of me was warier about the troubling similarities I found between ourselves … and between Madarame and Shido. I was—I _am_ still coping with the repercussions of my weakness during that time.”

“Your weakness?” Goro zeroes in on the word and laughs before he can stop himself. “Fuck that.”

“Pardon me?”

“Kitagawa, Madarame was a festering, talentless shit stain,” says Goro savagely. “I doubt it was your _weakness_ that led him to take advantage of hungry and abused children who had nowhere else to go.”

Kitagawa blinks owlishly at him, his lips parted slightly. “It’s rather gratifying to hear you say that.” He wrinkles his nose. “Even if the point was made vulgarly.” 

“… Whatever.”

“In any case, I am glad that despite my prior misgivings, I was able to speak with you today. Rest assured, I didn’t come here as Akira’s spoke-person—Akira is a dear friend to me, and it pained me to see him in such a state after the end of your relationship. It seemed that he was worried about you, and was unsure if he conducted things in the best way possible.” Goro twitches, schools himself to not react to that. “I wished to ascertain the situation for myself. Furthermore, you are a surprisingly refreshing and fascinating individual to be around, if not crass.”

You spoke for a majority of this conversation, Goro wants to point out, but then the server arrives with their entrées, and Kitagawa’s razor-sharp focus turns elsewhere, his entire body lighting up at the presence of food.

Watching Kitagawa stare reverently at the plate in front of him and then immediately begin to shovel it into his face, Goro gets further clarity as to why Akira—why Joker and the original band of the Phantom Thieves had made Madarame their second target, why they had taken in this boy with paper bones and absurd mannerisms despite not even knowing him.

Goro digs into his own food, and idly wonders if he should’ve killed Shadow Madarame the first time he’d visited that gaudy eyesore of a Palace.

“Would you object to a portraiture of yourself?” Kitagawa asks, suddenly. He’s back to scrutinizing Goro fiercely again, now that his plate is clean. “Your appearance is uniquely deceiving—it would make an intriguing subject for a piece.”

“Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Well, yes, you are conventionally handsome, with an attractive build and an evenly symmetrical face,” Kitagawa murmurs, bringing his fingers into a rectangle shape that frames Goro’s figure. A small, pathetic part of Goro tries not to preen at that. “But your face is capable of a far greater depth and spectacle of raw, honest emotion than I had initially believed it to be. It would be a challenge to capture that kind of expression in a simple frame, but it’s one that I’d like to undertake.”

Goro doesn’t know how to physically or mentally respond to that, so he says, “Do what you wish.”

“Very well.” Kitagawa nods, and then leans back to reach in his pocket. His face falls. “Ah. It seems that I’ve misplaced some of my funds. If you have the means to, would you be amenable to covering the cost of today’s meal, and I can repay your generosity in our next outing?”

“The next outing—” Goro says, disbelieving, and he barks out a short, rough laugh. “Sure. Fuck it, Kitagawa.”

“My sincere gratitude,” Kitagawa says somberly. “And you may call me Yusuke.”

* * *

**AUGUST 1, 2018**

It’s the anniversary of his mother’s suicide, and Goro can’t find the will to get up.

On every other year of his mother’s death anniversary, Goro would descend into the Metaverse with a dull throb in his veins and hack up any living, breathing thing he could find. Loki would come to him with the promise of violence on his heels, and they would traverse the depths of Mementos, raging and screaming until Goro wasn’t sure where he began and his Persona ended. When he came back to his empty apartment, blood still drying on his face, he would open an expensive bottle of something he swiped from Shido’s office stash and spend the rest of the night in a drunken stupor.

This year, this is no Metaverse, no shadows, no second skin to wrap itself around Goro as a balm. This year, there is just the morning, the same ache, and the same useless human body he’s always inhabited.

Akira finds him on the floor of Goro’s bathroom with an empty bottle next to him. Goro is looking listlessly at a smudged tile on the floor. Akira calls his name, which Goro registers faintly, but he remains there, head against the wall, ground cool beneath him. His body won’t do what Goro wants it to do. Sorry, Akira. 

“Goro,” Akira calls again, and he sits down to Goro’s eye level. He’s so very young, Goro thinks to himself, and he reaches out a hand to trace the contours of his face.

“Did you know that my mother was only 25 when she killed herself,” he says. Akira minutely tenses at that, and Goro smiles, blandly. So young. So pretty, with his skin stretching over his cheekbones like that, with his lips pouting, unhappiness so funny to see when Goro was the one with a dead mom and a shitty abusive dad. “I was the one who found her. I was watching the old Neo Featherman cartoon in the living room, and I heard a thump from the bathroom. She was lying on the floor, with an empty pill bottle in her hand. Almost like this, actually, but when she fell, her head had cracked against the tile a little. I only found out how young she was a few years back when I looked over her death certificate for the first time. I was shocked when I read her age. In my memories of her, she always seemed so much older.”

“Goro,” Akira says.

“I don’t think I actually called the cops, or anyone, at first,” he continues. “I thought she must’ve been sleeping. I waited for her to wake up, and I went back to watch my fucking cartoon.” A laugh bubbles through him. “Fuck, what kind of piece of shit child does that, with their mom’s corpse cooling in the bathroom?”

“You were so young, you can’t have possibly known—”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Goro yells at him. “ _Shut up_! You think I haven’t told myself that? It doesn’t fucking work. _Nothing_ has worked.” At that, his voice breaks into an open sob, and he clasps his hands over his mouth to desperately stop it before it can tear its way through his chest. He feels Akira try to draw him close, but he kicks him away, tears openly streaming down his cheeks now in hot, ugly waves.

“Fuck off, I don’t want you—don’t fucking look at me like that,” Goro snarls. He can’t see as clearly anymore, but he can see Akira in front of him, face swimming in his vision. He wants Akira to go away and he wants to swathe his body in him, curl himself up into the tight spaces of his ribcage.

“I was a mistake,” Goro says, and he hates, above all, how childlike he sounds. “I should’ve died.”

Akira has nothing to say that, and Goro lets the ugliness wash over his face, drip down to the floor. Not even Akira, in all his cleverness and kindness, can fix Goro up, not when he’s like this. Goro is a special kind of broken, the kind of glass that’s been shattered over and over again. It’s the only kind of special he’ll ever be, he thinks, and he wants to laugh all over again and choke on the sound.

Eventually, when all he can hear is the bathroom fan and his own pitiful sniveling, he blinks away the wetness in his lashes to find Akira crouching in front of him, his face broken open. His hands come up to cup Goro’s cheeks, the look in Akira’s eyes both nostalgic and shockingly new at once. Goro stares back with the same desperate helplessness he did when he was seventeen and trying to not be in love with his first ever friend.

“No one should ever feel guilty for being born,” Akira says quietly. “No one should feel guilty about surviving, or finding a life for themselves in the aftermath of everything shitty that has ever happened to them.”

“But I—”

“It wasn’t fate or karma or some God’s terrible humor that kept you alive after all this time, Goro,” Akira continues, more firmly. “It was you. You survived, you brought yourself back to life, you chose to live, even when reality told you that you couldn’t. _That_ ’s why you’re here.”

“Like a fucking cockroach,” Goro says bitterly.

“No,” Akira says, and his thumbs reach to swipe at Goro’s tear stains. “Like a miracle, Goro.”

 _Ah_. And just as some part of Goro breaks at that, another part of him slots cleanly into place, as if it was waiting, this whole time, to be told that he was deserving of life, of love. He almost balks at how needy that makes him sound, at how much of him now belongs to Akira—because no one else in this rotten world will ever know him this intimately, will never know the magic saccharine words to make Goro’s heart burst open, bleed anew. He smashes his lips against Akira’s in a messy clash of teeth and tongue, like he can still feel the press of the words as they left Akira’s mouth.

Later, Goro will think to himself, _I love you_. It doesn’t hurt to think it when Akira is asleep, snoring softly next to him, so Goro doesn’t have to rip the words from the bloody crevices of his heart as an offering. He could see himself doing it, easily.

 _Here_ , he would say to Akira, his hands open and bloody with devotion. _All for you_.

* * *

**NOVEMBER 1, 2018**

So, of course, when they are having dinner together in Kichijoji and Goro finally works up the emotional fortitude to tell Akira, “I love you,” wholly on purpose this time, without the familiar harbinger of doom looming over him, with the weight of his weathered soul on those three words, Akira says, in response:

“I think we should break up.”

* * *

**DECEMBER 31, 2018**

On the day of the (almost) two-month anniversary since Kurusu Akira shit all over his heart, Goro wakes up, and he is fine. Even if his mouth still tastes like the cheap beer he washed down his throat last night, and there’s definitely a line of drool on his cheek, he opens his eyes, and he doesn’t feel like he hates the world as much as he did yesterday morning. Goro is fine, and not thinking at all about how much it hurts to be in love with Kurusu Akira, until he checks his phone.

> **(2:04 AM)**
> 
> **Akira:** hey
> 
> **Akira:** wyd
> 
> **(2:34 AM)**
> 
> **Akira:** in retrospect
> 
> **Akira:** texting u at 2 am was not a great way to start this conversation
> 
> **Akira:** i actually just hope ur getting actual sleep rn
> 
> **Akira:** and i hope this doesn’t wake u up
> 
> **Akira:** u could also just be ignoring me. which is totally cool and understandable
> 
> **(2:37 AM)**
> 
> **Akira:** gnight
> 
> **Akira:** i hope
> 
> **Akira:** i hope youre good

  
The messages end there.

Goro rereads the stream of messages, and then scrolls through it again to make sure he still isn’t drunk and hallucinating. Akira texted him at 2 AM to ask how he was doing. Two months of radio silence, and Akira slips into his texts no more subtly than a booty call. If that was the case—a part of Goro regrets that he slept in so early, but slightly saner part of him rationalizes that hate-fucking Akira at 2 AM wouldn’t have been a good idea to begin with. A larger part of him is screaming to not even answer the texts, you pining dipshit, because it would only lead to an even more pitiable course of events.

He types out a curt reply.

> **(9:15 AM)**
> 
> **Goro:** I was sleeping.
> 
> **Goro:** What did you want?

After five minutes, Goro doesn’t receive another text, so he very calmly goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and not scream at the mirror. When he checks his phone again, his brush half in his mouth, there is still no new message. He has half a mind to text Ann or even fucking Yusuke about this—but then, that would make it seem like he cared, and Goro is very adamant about not caring about anything pertaining to the person who fucking crushed his heart, also known as Kurusu Akira. Because Goro is _fine_.

Throwing his phone back into bed, Goro decides to take his bike around Inokashira and ride until his muscles ache. He likes how riding a bike—as cliché as it is—is really just that: the wind across his skin, the sun beating down on his neck, his body falling into motion without a second thought. When he returns back to his apartment, hair sweaty and matted to the nape of his neck, Goro feels good. Endorphin rushes, even without bathing in the blood of his enemies, are nice. He feels great.

He checks his phone again.

> **(11:15 AM)**
> 
> **Akira:** sorry just woke up too lol
> 
> **Akira:** um
> 
> **Akira:** i just wanted to check in with you, see how you were doing
> 
> **Akira:** that sort of thing
> 
> **(11:20 AM)**
> 
> **Akira:** how are you doing, by the way

  
As he reads, Goro takes a long drag of his water bottle, and thinks about how he can passive aggressively let Akira know how much he wants him to burn in hellfire. He sends off another short response, with Akira texting back almost immediately this time.

> **(11:37 AM)**
> 
> **Goro:** Great.
> 
> **(11:39 AM)**
> 
> **Akira:** oh. cool. glad to hear it
> 
> **Akira:** ok actually
> 
> **Akira:** do you have time today to meet up
> 
> **Akira:** i didn’t text earlier to be a dick. i genuinely wanna know how you’ve been doing
> 
> **Akira:** which might be easier to talk about in-person

Don’t reply, Goro, he thinks to himself. Don’t reply.

> **(11:40 AM)**
> 
> **Goro:** Fine.

“Fuck,” he says, succinctly. He needs to take a shower.

On the day of the two-month anniversary since Kurusu Akira took a serrated sword through his heart, Goro makes plans to meet up with Akira at his apartment in the early evening. Meeting privately with his ex most assuredly sounds like a very bad, no good idea, but if Goro somehow manages to kill Akira a second time, for whatever reason, he figures that doing so without public scrutiny would be the cleanest method. He would just need to take care of Morgana, after, and he grimly smiles at the prospect.

The rest of the afternoon passes distantly. When the time comes, Goro rides his bike to Akira’s place, cold air biting his face, and very carefully does not think about anything. He eventually arrives at Akira’s door, fists digging into themselves. Before he can think better of it, he gives himself a quick check in his phone’s front camera, swipes a hand through his mussed hair. Maybe he should’ve talked to Ann about this after all and picked a suitable outfit. He wonders, ridiculously, if he will still look the same to Akira as he did months ago, or if Goro has changed at all during that time, if Akira will notice how deeper the rings underneath his eyes have emerged, if he can smell the amount of men Goro has fucked in emotionless one-night stands ever since Akira left him. He doesn’t know which he would prefer.

He breathes in, and knocks. Akira opens the door, and Goro steps through.

Akira’s apartment is the same as it’s ever been. The dogwood has lost all of its leaves and instead looms like a haunted skeleton outside the balcony. Akira’s manga, books, and other useless shit are still strewn all over the place. He thinks about his own bedsheets smelling like Akira, and he hopes, cruelly, that he has left his own imprint on all of Akira’s favorite spaces, if only to remind him of Goro unendingly.

Goro does not think on whether or not Akira looks any differently.

“So … do you want any coffee, or water—”

“No,” Goro interrupts, flatly.

Akira seems to falter a bit at Goro’s coldness. Good, Goro thinks, his old sadism curving his mouth down, you’re a piece of shit. “Alright,” he says, rubbing a hand over his hair. “No coffee or water or any other beverage then.”

“Did you come here to offer me pathetic pleasantries, or should I just go?”

“No, stop, that’s not why I—fuck, okay,” Akira says, sighing. He goes over to his dining table and sits down, gesturing for Goro to take a seat as well. Goro turns his nose up, but relents anyways. The table is small enough that their legs knock against each other.

“Okay, let’s start over.” Akira inhales, and exhales, bringing his gaze evenly to Goro. “I handled our break-up super shittily.”

Oh. He doesn’t know why the honesty is so surprising from the start. “Go on,” Goro says, crossing his arms against his chest.

“I heard that Yusuke met up with you to talk.”

“Yusuke bombarded me out of nowhere to speak with me about you and then left me with the bill, yes,” Goro says, tersely, even if he didn’t mind ultimately paying. “It was a fine conversation otherwise.”

Akira snorts. “Yeah, that’s definitely Yusuke.”

“What’s it to you, anyhow?"

“Well, he told me that he tried to clarify some things about our relationship with you,” Akira says.

“He gave me some shit about how you broke off things between us for _yourself_ , and for your own _self-growth_.” Goro sneers, spitting the words out like poison. “At the time, I suppose I could see where he was coming from, but I realized his observations just confirmed my suspicions that you’re a spineless, idiotic twit, who ran away like a little fucking coward. My words, not his, of course.”

He can see Akira physically try to not react to the words, which makes Goro want to needle him even more, see if he really is wearing the same stupid fucking masks that Yusuke had said he donned like shifting skins. “Okay, maybe some of that is deserving,” Akira says, mouth drawn into a flat line. “But I wouldn’t call myself a _coward_ —”

“Akira, I told you that I loved you for the first time, and your immediate response was to break up with me,” Goro says. He keeps his hands rigidly clasped together underneath the table, lest he throw the whole damn thing in Akira’s face. “How the fuck else was I supposed to view that?”

“To be frank, that was the _second_ time you said you loved me, not the first,” says Akira hotly. Finally. There’s the rival he’s been waiting for, Goro thinks, savagely. “The actual firs _t_ time you told me that you loved me, you’re the one who ran away scared, not me.”

“Oh, so the break-up _was_ about me,” Goro says, and he cackles, his delight bringing him higher and higher. “Good! I was really dreading that Yusuke’s heartfelt analysis would be right, and I’d actually have to feel sorry for your ass. But please, Akira, tell me how much of a shitty boyfriend I was to you, tell me how awful it was to deal with someone like me, someone who could barely stand to say _I love you_ to their beloved partner—”

“It wasn’t like that,” Akira insists, like he doesn’t even know what game they’re playing. Goro wants to hit him. He just might, for fun.

“Shut the fuck up,” he near-yells, nails biting bloody crescents into his skin. “I know you probably fucking despised me the whole time, I know you were just stringing me along like some mangy dog. You knew who I was the whole time, didn’t you, or did you finally fucking realize it? It only took you _8 months_ of letting me fuck you to get it through your thick skull.”

“Stop putting words in my mouth—”

“I’m not an idiot,” Goro hisses, and stands to his feet, unsteadily. “You don’t get to be the kind of person that I am and think that makes you a suitable romantic partner for anyone. I’m a fucking disaster. But you—” He draws in an uneven breath, and steels his voice. If he broke now, he would never forgive himself. “You understood me. You never stopped talking about our bullshit rivalry, never stopped fucking chasing me, even after I shot your brains out. You one-upped me every step of the way, and then you had to go and do the worst thing you could possibly do and fall in love with me and make me fall in love with you and then ruin absolutely _everything_ by going back on all of it. I’m quite possibly fucked for every other relationship after this— because who else in their right mind wants to carry the baggage of a former child assassin with personality issues and borderline alcoholism?”

“Goro—"

“I hate you,” Goro cuts through, viciously, as if he’s still a superpowered teenager trying to crush the weight of the world underneath his heels. “I hate you so much, because no one is ever going to make me feel even a fraction of how I do when I’m around you, and _it’s not even your fault_.”

The words leave him with red singing in the corners of his vision. He braces a hand back against the table, and wants to bend and crush the wood beneath him, if only to feel like he has control again. He feels split open. He feels like he is allowing Akira to watch as he bleeds himself out, right in front of him, all of his hatred, devotion, and longing spilling onto the floor between them. He can’t remember the last time he fucking exhaled.

“I didn’t think it would be fair of me,” Akira says, finally, “to stay with you.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make,” Goro snaps back, but there’s less bite behind it.

“It doesn’t take two people to end a relationship, Goro,” Akira counters. He sounds just as exhausted. “And I didn’t end my relationship with you because I secretly thought you were a broken basket case the whole time. Not that you don’t need to deal with your shit, it’s just that I was—I’m pretty fucked up myself, honestly. I thought I could ignore that fact by letting myself take care of you. And that wasn’t fair to you, or to us, no matter how I looked at it.”

Another person might’ve protested at that, Goro thinks, numbly. Another person would have said that they would’ve poured the same amount of care and consideration into Akira right back, taken him into his arms as gently as Akira did to them and soothe all his doubts, his insecurities.

This person was not Goro. It dawns on him that this is the realization that Akira most likely came to, as well.

“I don’t resent you for it,” Akira continues in a low tone, knowing Goro’s mind even now. “I never have. My inability to take care of myself was never about you or us. I made it that way myself. And the way I finally chose to bring it up to you was one of the worst things I’ve ever done to another person, least of all someone that I love. I freaked out that night, and that’s why I wanted to see you again, because you deserved better. It only took 2 months for me to summon the guts to do it.”

Goro sinks back into his seat. His vision is fuzzy again, blurring rapidly at the edges.

“For the record, no one’s ever made me feel the things I do around you, either,” Akira says. His voice sounds wet. Goro would feel smug at that, if he didn’t feel the same well of emotion clogging his throat, too. “When you told me that you loved me, both times, I felt like the world was finally making sense to me again, after months of me just—existing. I never stopped missing you. I meant what I said, when I told you that I knew you would always come back.”

“You,” Goro starts. He feels wrecked, a dry, hoarse rasp caught in his mouth. He gives up on eloquence. “God. Fuck. Fuck this.”

Akira laughs, even as Goro can see the tears falling freely from his stupid fucking lashes, and the sight hollows out his insides. “Yeah,” Akira says. “That’s the general feeling right now.”

Goro breathes in, deeply, and then begins talking again. “You need to see a fucking therapist. One that isn’t trying to alter the whole world’s cognition.”

“Well, yeah, so do you.”

“Shut up, I’m talking,” Goro continues resolutely, staring down Akira from across the small table. He swipes at the stray wetness burning in his eyes, and blazes forward, saying, “You need to actually go outside and take in some sun, because I know how long you’ll fucking stay inside if no one kicks you out on the curb themselves. Stop letting the whole goddamn city ask favors from you. Tell Nijima or Okumura or Sakamoto or whoever else to fuck off when you’re busy—they’re thick-skinned enough to get the picture. And learn to consume something that’s not coffee or curry. Eat a fruit, or some fucking shit like that, I don’t know.”

“What are you, my self-care guru?” Akira scoffs, but he’s looking at Goro, blotchy-faced and fond. “I think you just missed telling me what to do.”

“Like you don’t enjoy it,” Goro retorts, kicking at him from underneath the table.

“You know the same goes for you, too, right,” Akira says, deftly dodging his kicks without breaking face. “Like, I’ve seen your fridge—don’t look at me like that, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But, seriously,” he pauses here, pulling his teeth between his lips. Goro rolls his eyes at him, and kicks at his legs even harder. “Ok, fine—it’s cliché, and you’re gonna hate me, and I know I said that I would make my life less about taking care of other people, least all of you, but. You should know that I still consider you my friend, more than anything else, okay?”

Akira probably means it as his olive branch, a touching ending to close out whatever the fuck this conversation is—so of course, Goro doesn’t let him. “Teammates? Friends? To hell with that,” he spits, lips curling in a mocking, exaggerated sneer. Akira gapes at him before rising to tackle Goro to the floor, because this is the kind of mean-spirited person Goro is. Goro is breathless as they attempt to pin each other down, with Goro emerging victorious as he straddles Akira’s waistline, Akira staring up at him wordlessly. It should feel wrong, whatever this is, and Goro tells him as much.

“This won’t fix everything,” Goro says to him. “We’re fucked up, and saying that doesn’t make it any better.”

“Yeah, I know,” Akira agrees softly. He leans up to press his forehead against Goro’s, to thread his hands through the strands of Goro’s hair, to let his skin burn through him. Goro says nothing, and just, for that moment, lets himself be touched.

* * *

**JANUARY 1, 2019**

They stand on the balcony, as the clock strikes midnight.

“Happy New Year,” Akira says.

He extends his left hand out to Goro, a smirk ghosting on his lips, the wind whipping through his ridiculous mop of curls, the promise of a future swelling between them—and God help him, Goro takes it.

* * *

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> a few notes:
> 
> \-- was this just a long and meandering character study on goro akechi? ............disappears
> 
> \-- was this just a long and self-indulgent treatise on my headcanons post-p5r, and an ode to my own depression? ............disappears
> 
> \-- i really love ann and yusuke. this was very close to becoming a yusuke/goro timeline.
> 
> \-- this is my baby, and i'm surprised she grew as big as she did. it's been a while since i let myself write as profusely as i did here. please, please leave a kudos or comment if you got something out of this, and thanks so much to the shuake fandom for keeping me nourished every day !
> 
> \-- (edit, 10.2) if u saw that i fucked up the dates the first time, no u didnt <3


End file.
